Anybody Hungry? 🥪
Or, thoughts on food. Basically.
If you don’t know wtf this is, you can click here to find out. Ty for reading. 🫶
A case for the breakfast sushi.
“Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.”
We all grew up hearing this, right? As a girl with admittedly “bad morning belly” 6 out 7 days of the week, I’ve never identified as a breakfast eater. It’s always felt like a lot of pressure, like an expectation where if your stomach isn’t ready for it before 11 AM you’ve failed somehow. Yes I love eggs but I just need my body to be in a good spot for them, is that so crazy?
Turns out, not really!
The breakfast as we know it (eggs, cereal, bacon, perfectly golden toast) is surprise, surprise: all thanks to marketing, capitalism, and religion. The big three horseman of the apocalypse, if you ask me.
Prior to the 19th century breakfast was really just comprised of “whatever’s around.” But thanks to Kellogg branding overly seasoned and flavorful food as a reason for promiscuity and masturbation, bland and healthy eating (aka: corn flakes cereal) was easily marketable. In the 1940s breakfast was advertised as having copious amounts of vitamins, further pushing the “importance” of it all. But what really locked in the plate we can all picture when we think of an All-American Breakfast was a massive campaign to sell more bacon.
Edward Bernays (nephew to Sigmund Freud) was a working as PR for the Beech-Nut company. His work is responsible for persuading doctors to sign off saying that a protein-heavy breakfast of bacon and eggs was healthier than something light (like cereal) and then Bernays had these claims published in various news outlets as if they were scientific studies. The result brought B&Es back into the centerfold and ultimately was responsible for not only heavily pushing bacon sales nationwide, but hammering in the idea that breakfast was not only necessary but medically recommended.
It’s fascinating (if not a little harrowing) to really examine why we practice the food patterns we do. We we associate eggs with the morning (first because they were easily accessible and require no butchery, then thanks to lobbyists and PR) and not the evening. Why a pancake feels appropriate at 10 AM, but a club sandwich does not. Why we heard we should eat a specific breakfast and we just accepted it at face value.
I’m not a huge breakfast person. I don’t feel like my system really “wakes up” until after noon. And with that makes me feel like making a scramble at 1 PM is a little…off.
Over the last year I’ve really rejected the idea of breakfast foods in the morning for myself. Unless I’m hungover, which we’ll get to in a little bit. But a cold, half-quart container of kofta and curry sauce? Yes please. A few pieces of inari dipped in a spicy mayo? Gimme. A warmed mug of leftover chickpea stew with a fried egg on top? Any time any where! I’ve even recently dabbled in the breakfast salad (I know, I know, I’m in my 30s) and I honestly didn’t hate it.
All of this to say, I think we should all lean in to establishing the rituals and routines around food that work best for us. Why haven’t we been doing that in the first place?Maybe Alison Roman can help heal my family trauma.
I haven’t seen my parents in something like five or six years. Maybe more, I honestly don’t remember. We are very separate from each other and I wish it was easy but it is decidedly not.
Talking about family estrangement is hard. And isolating. It’s also weirdly humiliating? I think our society really positions not fitting in to a traditional, happy, nuclear family as some sort of moral failure. It’s hard to get over, to move past, to heal.
The last holiday I spent with my parents I still had split-dyed, neon hair. They tried to set me up with the pastor’s son. I got glared at every time I contested something politically at dinner(s), even when I didn’t start it. I made a Moroccan lentil stew on my last night there. My dad was skeptical of the peanut butter and the spinach; my mom texts me every time she makes it.
Family is complicated. Forgiveness is complicated. Finding peace even more so than any of the above.
I really struggle with talking about my family. Almost as much as I struggle talking to them, these days. It’s hard to not feel slighted when you’ve stopped dialing the numbers so the phone stops ringing altogether. It’s hard to not wonder how much must be wrong with you to have the people who are literally responsible for your existence not even express the smallest interest in being there for you.
One of my favorite days of the year is Thanksgiving. Not necessarily because of the holiday but because a day where I can just sit in the kitchen cooking and baking for 8 hours sipping on a wine cocktail is pretty much my idyllic day. It is my Superbowl. My magnum opus. My time to shine.
I don’t know the last time I did a Thanksgiving with my parents. I think it probably hasn’t happened in 15 years.
But this year, my mom weirdly asked me what I made for the holiday. And in asking she said:
“Have you heard of Alison Roman? Have you tried her Dilly Rolls?”
As the bright red polish on my nails and my love for anchovies and gold hoops would suggest, I have obviously heard of Alison Roman. And as for the Dilly Rolls:
Well there they are. Hot out of the oven for Friendsgiving. A little wrinkly but still so dilly and so decadent. I ate the leftovers with butter and Maldon for almost a week after.
To say that Alison Roman will become the bridge that fixes all of my family problems is obviously hyperbole. Shallots and beans and tomato paste and loving going upstate and snark are certainly not the answer to fixing decades or more of cycles that have nicked away at multiple people. But there was something about her asking about a media persona I’ve been obsessed with for a while and a recipe I’d already made that was…a little kismet.
I hate that I’m the person who looks for signs. Who after writing that sentence checked the clock to see if there were repeating digits. Who genuinely is relieved by a tarot spread. But if a sign turns out to be right, that’s nothing to hate, I suppose?
Idk anyway after multiple years of feeling misunderstood, I didn’t hate feeling seen. Even if it was unintentional. We all deserve to be seen.What Your Hangover Order Says About You:
This could be the beginning of a Th**ght C*t*l*g article but I promise it is not and is merely a tongue and cheek opener.
To me there are three distinct hangover orders. Warmth, Grease, and Simple.
Let’s dive in.
WARMTH
This is the kind of hangover that require all of the curtains closed, probably The Great British Baking Show playing, and multiple levels of reassurance that everything is ok. This is the hangxiety order. The one that levels you, grounds you, brings you back down to Earth. There’s no heaviness (literally or metaphysically) it’s just good, good, good. It’s the kind of hangover order you need when you probably also need a hug, but you’re a little too nervous to ask for it.
In this case I would recommend: Shakshuka.
GREASE
You might be dying, and this will revitalize you. Do not get on your phone and consider spending $250+ on an IV drip. The nurse will make fun of you for how dehydrated your veins are and I promise you can get a similar effect with a naproxen, a Sit Down Shower™, and a sandwich that is so messy it drips down to your elbow. And then you can take another shower. House the sando and put an ice pack on your eyes until the room stops spinning. You’ll be okay.
In this case I would recommend: The messiest, borderline disgusting sandwich you’ve ever thought of. Godspeed.
SIMPLE
This is the kind of hangover that just needs something in your stomach. No muss, no fuss. Leave the red pepper flakes in the cabinet (which is a crazy thing to say coming from me), just simple EVOO and butter. Get your protein and carbs in your system and go from there. And also pound at least a pint glass of water. Have you heard of water? Incredible.
In this case I would recommend: The Egg-in-a-Hole.
Just a love letter to some specific restaurants.
To the greasy diners that held us long after dark and into the sunrise hours of the following morning. Where we talked about the dance floor make-outs and exchanged hookup stories over plates of hashbrowns, creamy pie slices, and grilled cheeses dipped in ketchup and ranch. We probably stole mugs and the miniature carafes for creamer, which was shitty of us, but having an apartment semi-furnished with hodge-podge dishes in college is kind of a 20-something right of passage. The Perkins or Sherri’s or Paul’s Pancake Parlor mug is one that every house requires.
To the first time you spent a rent payment or more on dinner. Where you say yes to the caviar, yes to the amuse, yes to the bottle(s) of wine, yes to the after dinner whiskey and bubbles. Where you photograph every course because “phone eats first” is a lifestyle, especially when you’re in that kind of a tax bracket kind of place. You collect the matchbooks from the host stand to remember it by. You post no fewer than five Instagram stories about it. You take selfies in the bathroom and wonder who else has washed their hands there. You take it all in—because it’s meant to be special. And it is.
To the places where you’re a regular. Where the bartenders and servers either wordlessly pass you your drink order before your ass is in the seat or know they can take a solid 10 to even say hi to you because “you get it.” Where your orders are memorized and when you occasionally try something new it elicits a response. You don’t really recommend it to anyone because it’s not that kind of place, it’s just yours. When you do bring someone else with you it almost feels like indoctrinating them or introducing them to your parents. It’s your third place, or at least one of them. It’s a place you know you can count on. And that’s worth so, so much.
To the places faraway that make you feel like home. Where you can saddle up bar side with a book and your hotel key and a sigh and instantly feel at ease. Where the menu and the staff feel like a gentle hand on the back that say, “You’re good here.” Where you can fill yourself with something other than a dish from a plastic plate or overpriced french fries from room service. A place you feel you can confidently recommend to friends when they’re in the area. A place that you might only go once a year or even less, but it’s comforting to know it’s there.
To the old faithfuls. The staples. The places that get us through long days, bad days, happy days, even nothing days. Places where you know exactly what you’re getting. You know you can slip into a booth, or simply order your favorite from your phone, and you can predict exactly what you’re getting. You have memorized the sponginess of the crust, the vinegar to sugar ratio of the rice, the overwhelming heat of the salsa. You know what you’re getting every single time. That’s the thing about these places. They hold specific and purposeful places in our lives for a reason. If you need to be comforted, you know you’re just 20 minutes from a slice that will do just that.
In defense of fast food.
One of my favorite things a friend of mine has ever said is:
“I don’t trust you if you say you don’t like fast food.”
I basically got down on my knees when they said this (and continued ranting about how it is genetically and scientifically programmed to be delicious, it’s impossible to say you don’t like it) and worshipped at their feet because I so, so agree. Even you don’t necessarily like EVERY fast food establishment (I have no room for Burger King in my life) you have to have at least one that you love, even if only under specific circumstances.
While I’m not going to advocate for eating it every day, I love a fast food moment. When I’m in the throes of a work project nothing picks me up more than DoorDashing a giant Diet Coke The Size Of My Head™ and a small fry with a side of barbecue sauce. When I’m on a road trip all I want is a chicken strip. In an airport? Hit me with a quick and easy egg sandwich. I think fast food serves its purpose in many, many ways. And if I'm going to soap box, I think hating on it is 📣yes rude but also probably classist!!!📣
A weird memory I have with fast food is how we were not a fast food family until I started horseback riding lessons. I went every day after school and was routinely famished by the end of that hour posting in a saddle. So for whatever reason, my mom started zipping us through the McDonalds drive thru before class after picking me up from school for a filet-o-fish Monday through Friday. I’ve never lost my affinity for that weird little fish sando. It’s perfect. Even the bun looks photoshopped.
With everything I’ve said it’s probably obvious to assume I’m a McDonalds sun. Probably Taco Bell rising. Either Taco John’s or…maybe Wendy’s moon? I’ll have to ponder this tbqh.
Besides my friend’s quip about loving fast food another quote I think about often is, “There’s comfort in consistency.” If there is anything you can expect from fast food, it’s the consistent of it all.
When everything falls apart it’s comforting to know that a perfectly oval hashbrown is always going to be there. That I can always sub meat with potatoes and black beans in my crunchwrap supreme. That I can get a back of Dicks (iykyk) in 20 minutes with a plain burger on the side for my dog. That level of convenience and dependability is nice to know is out there.
And also when your stomach is turning and nothing sounds appetizing? Plain chicken sandwiches will probably always do the trick.
Or you can risk it with a filet-o-fish. They’ve never done me wrong.
